TRP: Sugar and Hansel (Drowning)
Setting The Skyport docks, late evening. It isn’t busy this time of day, and Hansel wanders along the boardwalk, only half paying attention to the ships in port until on catches his eye and makes him stop. It looks kind of familiar. More than that, one of the sails is half up and half down, and the other is twisted, somehow. He squints. There’s a tiny pink tiefling on the deck, throwing all of her weight into one of the ropes, which even from a distance, he can see is secured on the other side of the deck. She looks kind of familiar, too. Against his own better judgement, he calls, "Hey, uh. You all right up there?" Player 1: Sugar is standing on the rail of the shift, trying to heave this rope-- which is normally too high for her to reach. When Hansel calls out, she jumps, startled, and her fancy high-heeled white boots slip. She tumbles into the water immediately. Her arms flail above the water. Player 2: "Aw, fuck." Without considering the fact that if she owns a ship, she can probably swim (right?), Hansel dashes to the edge of the boardwalk. If he had his trident he'd hold it out and try to get her to grab onto it, but this was supposed to be a nice, simple walk. He didn't come armed. And she's still flailing, so he dives in after her, grabbing her around the waist and dragging her head back above the surface. "You all right?" he asks again, with much the same inflection. Player 1: Sugar's eyes immediately widen. She clings to him and wraps her arms around his neck. Her face turns an even brighter shade of pink. She scrambles off him and onto the dock. "Oh wow. You, um. You're--" She glances at him, face turning even redder. Hansel's tunic clings to him now that it's wet. "You're Hansel Granger. You're the, um, pirate one." Her eyes sparkle when she says the word 'pirate.' Player 2: He winces at her scrambling around and heaves himself up out of the drink behind her. She knows his name? His full name? Shit. Then he should know her. She's definitely sort of familiar. Not that many pink tieflings around. She probably works for the guild. "Uh. Pirate one. Yep." He glances back to the ship. "That's your ship?" Player 1: "Oh. A very nice tiefling sold it to me." She clasps his hand. It's very wet. Both of them. "Um, I have a hole in my ship. Do you know anything about holes in ships? I closed it but it's, um, defrosting." There is a very long pause, then she says, "Oh, I'm Nixbi... Sugar. I'm Sugar. I work for the Guild, too. You rescued me before." Her eyes sparkle again. Player 1: Then she adds, "My real name's Nixbixitus Smirnov but nobody can pronounce that so Sugar is okay too." Player 2: His eyes narrow. He's pretty sure he'd remember saving someone, but now that he's looking at the ship, he does remember that one mission the guild had sent him on where ... "I think I might've been on fire when we met. Sorry." Back to the ship. He can deal with ships. "But yeah, they're not supposed to have holes in them, is the thing. You'll probably need a carpenter, but I can ... look at it, I guess? Where's the hole?" Player 1: She leads you up to the side of the ship, then down. The ship is mostly repaired. It looks like Ripley paid someone to make it sea-worthy. Sugar's shined the deck until it gleams. She's decorated the ship with dried flowers. As you walk downstairs, you pass a crate filled with hay-- she's adopted a cinnamon-colored cat, and it's had kitten. She leads you down to the hold. There is a large hole that was definitely not there before. There is a spike of ice sticking out of it. "I, um." She waved vaguely. "I was experimenting with magic. So, did I kill the ship?" Player 2: Hansel stares at it for a while without saying anything. "Nix--uh, Sugar. Did you think that maybe you shouldn't've been experimenting with magic" (what a terrifying phrase) "inside the ship?" He gestures to the walls. "There's a whole deck just up there. Could've been avoided." Player 1: Sugar squints at him. (Is this a trick question?) She stares at her toes. "Um," she said. "I lied. There was, uh." She waved her hands. "A rat. It startled me." She glances at the enormous ice spike. ".... I'm pretty sure I killed it, though," she says. "So it's, uh, okay now." Player 2: He nods as though this makes sense. "Yeah. Yeah, you probably got it. All right. Well." He sighs. "Look, I've seen ships take much worse hits than this and keep floating. Tell you what, I'll find you a carpenter to send over here tomorrow." Something tells him that if he just told her to find one herself, it would go wrong, possibly calamitously. "But in the future, maybe just ... let the rats live." Player 1: "Oh, I have cats now. That's the first thing I did once I realized we had rats." She pauses. "After I killed the first one. Um, can you help me look over the rest of the ship?" Before she totally finishes her question, there's a yowl from outside. Sugar seems torn for a moment. Then she says, "Um, I'll be right back. Hang on." And she bolts upstairs. Then she come back down. "Uh, don't come up here. Cinnamon is....... real mad. I gotta--" And she waves her arms and then bolts upstairs. Player 1: "It's okay!" you hear her shout from up above. "Just.... don't come up here!" Player 2: He starts to go up after her anyway, but stops himself. It's ... probably fine. It's just a cat -- it's not a mountain lion. What's the worst that could -- fuck, he shouldn't've thought that. Hansel sighs and turns back to appraise the rest of the hold, rubbing at his eyes. Well, there's not a second hole plugged by an ice spike. It's not the worst it could possibly be. Player 1: There’s a familiar feeling of being watched. After about sixty seconds, Mishka appears with a flicker of his green-and-gold magic as he dismisses the invisibility spell. He's sitting at the top of a pile of crates. He’s holding the vial loosely in one hand. He’s unarmed. He’s looking particularly flawless today—not the way he was last time, alone at his estate, barefoot in the library. “Hello, lover." He stretches his legs. "She'll probably be occupied at least thirty minutes. I scattered the kittens around the ship. One of them's in the crow's nest. You're an impossible man to get alone." Player 2: Hansel's jaw tightens, but he tries not to react outwardly. The feeling of being watched never really goes away, now; he just tries to ignore it and find the line between paranoia and the reality of being the bitter ex-husband of someone who can turn fucking invisible. He hates that he even notices how lovely Mishka looks in the low light of the hold. He focuses on the vial instead. "What do you want?" Player 1: “I’ve been thinking about what to do with this. You’ve really got me stumped.” He fiddles with the vial. “I thought about making you confess to Ripley, but she’d probably punch me. Not a subtle woman, she. I thought about getting you to confess to the Church of Helm and have you hanged, but they don’t prosecute crimes preformed at sea. I thought about making you tell Jonn the whole ‘explosion’ thing was your fault…” And he pauses. He tosses it to you. “I want my time,” he says. “But you can always just not talk, if that’s what you want.” Player 2: He catches the vial, frowning. No one's here. There's no audience for whatever he wants to force Hansel to say. Uneasily, he thinks of the possibility of Mishka grabbing him and teleporting him somewhere -- the feeling it used to cause in his gut. It's not impossible, but it doesn't seem likely. "All right." He studies Mishka for a moment, then downs the vial. Half an hour. Unlike Mishka, at least he's very good at not talking. Player 1: "Alright, I've gotta ask," Mishka said. "What the fuck happened to your pinky finger?" Player 2: Hansel looks down at it. Well, that's harmless. "Sold it to some creepy fuckin' doll broad in exchange for some magic shit." Player 1: "....... Okay," Mishka says, then pauses for a while. "You know, I have no idea what I expected. But okay. Question two. You said you loved me when we were married." And something crosses his face for a second, but it's impossible to read, and then it's gone again. "True or false?" Player 2: Hansel sighs. What's his game wasting time on easy questions? "Of course I fucking loved you. For fuck's sake." Player 1: "Why?" Mishka says. Player 1: Like he's genuinely curious. Player 2: "Why did I love you?" Hansel looks confused. He thinks. Maybe it's hard to remember; maybe he doesn't want to answer. Either way, he's quiet for a while. Slowly, he says, "I used to think you were ... kind. You were beautiful and funny and you still are--" he looks pissed at himself for letting the last part slip out. "But I used to think you were dependable and basically good. You're not." He sighs again, annoyed, and looks away. "You fuckin' happy with that?" Player 1: "It's helpful." He drums his fingers on the crate he's sitting on. “Your adorable little son is trying to kill me. It looks like you caught the first attempt, which is great. A-plus, right there. He went back the next night, though. He tried to slip poison into my drink at the Silverlight Inn. Maybe he thought it’d be ironic,” Mishka says. He’s looking right at Hansel now. He’s languid, loose, like this is nothing to him. “Are you going to help him?” Player 2: He has to put a leash on that boy. And take away his poisons. Goddammit. Again, Hansel thinks for a moment. Then he shrugs. He's not sure if the potion prevents him from lying with body language, but if Mishka needs to hear words, he can drag them out of him. Player 1: Mishka stands up. He steps down, step by step, from the little pile of crates. "Hans. C'mon. I'm not--" He searches for the words. "It's not what you think this time." Player 1: He pauses. Then says, "This time." Player 1: "What do you need from me? I just want to hear you say it." Player 2: Hansel gives him a look. "And what do you think I think it is? This time?" Player 1: "Well, chances are, you probably think I'm threatening you. Which. I mean. Fair." Player 2: Hansel doesn't know why he's even bothering to ask any questions when he's the one who drank the potion this time. Mishka lies when he breathes. "Well, at least you're self-aware about it," he deadpans. Player 1: "You really aren't gonna listen to a thing I say, huh," Mishka says. Player 2: He's quiet for a moment. "I listened to what you had to say the other night." Player 1: “I know you’re not going to believe me. I don’t know why I bother saying anything to you.” He leans against one of the crates again. His hands clasp on it, white-knuckled. “For fuck’s sake. You’re trying to distract me so it wears off. Look. I just—” He bits his tongue. “It’d be easier. If he hated me and blamed me instead of hating and blaming you. I bet you'd prefer that.” He waves his hand. “Did the note piss him off enough?” Player 1: "Shall I keep going with the notes, I mean?" Player 2: Hansel crosses his arms. "I'm not trying to distract you. I'm having a fuckin' conversation." He's still not getting what Mishka's playing at and it pisses him off. "Do you think you're doing me a fucking favor?" Player 1: "I feel like this conversation would've been way easier if I just took the other half of the goddamn vial," Mishka said. "Look, I just want you to know. That thing I said about liking your kid and not killing him? Still the same. He’ll wear himself out eventually. He’s good at what he does, but he’s young. He’ll have to really push himself to take me out. Again. I am certain you are not going to believe a word out of my mouth. But I’m not going to kill him, Hans. I’ll singe him a bit, burn off some of that pretty hair, dump him on your doorstep, kick him a bit, call him a whore. He’ll be fine.” "Hell," Mishka says. "He'll probably become an excellent assassin if he spends the next five years trying to murder me in my sleep. Good practice." Player 2: After glaring at him for a moment, Hansel says, "Yeah, I believe you. I don't fucking like it, but I do." He relaxes a little. "But don't fucking help, all right? Leave him alone. If you're seriously asking me if I want you to keep sending him fucking love letters, then I don't. It's hurting him." Player 1: Mishka's expression drops for a second. Like he genuinely had not considered that. Then it's gone again. He's closer now that he was before, up on the crates. His eyes are little dilated and he smells like alcohol. It's always hard to tell when he's been drinking because it shows so little, but Hansel's been around him a long time. Mishka's a lot more vulnerable right now then he usually is. "Hans," he says. "For fuck's sake. Just tell me if you're going to help him kill me or not. I want to know if I'm going to have to kill you." His voice is raw. Player 1: "It's making it really hard to plan because I can't tell," he says. Player 2: Hansel breathes him in for a moment. It's that wine he makes now -- Hansel recognizes it mostly from vomiting it up. It's too sweet for him. Turns his stomach. God, he loves the smell, though. He takes a step back. He makes himself grin. "Y'know, I like fuckin' up your plans." But he can't commit to it. "I don't have any interest in killing you, Mishka," he says softly. "I can't tell you I never will, because I don't know what bullshit you're going to do. But I don't want to kill you." Player 1: Mishka starts to say something, then stops, like he's just realized he's about to do say something idiotic or embarrassing. "Well," he says. Then nothing else. "Thank god." He digs around in his pocket, then pulls something out. It's a napkin from that bar he likes. It has something scribbled on it. "Third question. Are you doing okay?" Player 2: "Fuck no." He says it without thinking. "And fuck you for asking." There's no venom behind it -- it's more mild incredulity. Almost joking. He tells himself it's the potion talking. "I don't know if you heard, but my apartment exploded." Player 1: "You know, I swear to god, I never thought you'd fall for that." Mishka squints at the list. Most of these are things he wants to ask but doesn't want to know. "Do you have any idea what Ripley is doing? I can't figure it out. Sorry, just going down the list. I know I'm going to fucking kick myself for this whole conversation once I'm sober." Player 2: "Right now, no. In general, still no. Whatever it takes to run a guild?" He shrugs. "I stopped having personal relationships with my bosses." He bites his tongue. "We can always do this again. Same deal." Player 1: "Mm." Mishka seems torn. "I want to," he admits. "Listen, when I'm sober, can we just pretend this never happened." Player 2: Hansel laughs, surprising himself. "Absolutely fucking not." Player 1: For a second, Mishka looks pleased. His face is soft and relaxed again, which is not an expression he's had for a while. "I'm glad," he said, "I don't have to viciously murder you. Thank you." And then, in that same raw voice, he says, "I think about kissing you all the time, but I am certain you will just punch me." It is not a question. The napkin list is balled-up in his hand. "I was going to ask, but it's a pretty stupid question," he says. "Didn't seem worth the time." And he turns to go, thought hesitates. Sugar is cooing upstairs, fawning over the kittens. Player 2: Hansel grits his teeth. He wonders how much time is left. His chest aches. "Y'know, you'll never find out if you don't ask." Player 1: "Okay, but you're going to say no, and then we're both going to laugh about it, and I'm going to flip you off, and we'll go back to killing each other," Mishka says. Then, instead of asking, he snaps his fingers. Hansel feels a spell take hold of him for a second. It's a recognizable feeling: that same paralytic spell Mishka's used in the past that holds people in place. Mishka comes back down the stairs, step by step. And stops in front of Hansel and watches him to see if he moves. Does he? Player 2: Hansel watches him without moving. Quietly, he says, "You didn't have to do that." Player 1: Mishka stands on his toes, wraps his hand in Hansel's shirt, and kisses him. His mouth tastes like too-sweet wine. He is way more drunk than he's letting on. Player 2: Hansel grabs him for a moment, tasting the echo of every night he spent in shithole taverns trying to forget all the reasons it was a bad idea to stumble out of Skyport and pass out on Mishka's doorstep. He pulls away, but gently -- leaving a hand at Mishka's waist. He fits perfectly. They fit perfectly. "You should go home. You're fucked up." Player 1: Mishka lets out a huff. "I like being fucked up. I'm mean when I'm sober." He lets go and steps back. He is just a little unsteady. "Okay, well-- I'm going to pretend this didn't happen. I am a mysterious, devious villain. Devious." And then Sugar half-tumbles downstairs. Mishka glances up. "Hansel!" she says. "I keep collecting all the kittens and they keep crawling away. I can't. I can't get them all. Oh, hi, Mishka." "Hello, Nixbixitus," he says. He snags a kitten she dropped, hands it to Hansel, and moves to go upstairs. The thirty minutes are thoroughly up. Player 2: "Mmhm. Devious." He can't argue with any of that, but it does amuse him. It shouldn't amuse him. Goddammit. Fuck. Hansel cradles the kitten awkwardly, caught off guard by -- everything. He wants to ask something else, to call Mishka back again, but he doesn't. He makes himself look away from him and let him go, looking to Sugar instead. "How in the fuck do you know my husband, Sugar?" Player 1: Sugar blinks. "He teaches me magic tricks. I'm very good at them." "She is," Mishka says from the top of the stairs. He glances at the ice spike. "Most of them." Player 2: Maybe it's the last bit of the potion. "All right, well, that definitely worries me." He shakes his head and looks down at the kitten. "Did you get the one in the crow's nest?" Player 1: Sugar's face drops. She glances uncertainly upstairs. "Uh-- I'm... afraid of heights." She glances sheepishly at you. "Can you. Um." Player 2: He sighs and starts to hand her the one he's holding, then reconsiders when he realizes her arms are full. "Yeah, I'll ..." He stops and yells up the stairs, "Mishka, clean up your fucking mess." To Sugar, at a normal volume, he adds, "I'll get it." Player 1: There's a snort of laughter up the stairs. Then a crack, another crack, and Mishka reappears in front of Hansel with the last kitten from the crow's nest. It's a small orange kitten this time, the same color as Mishka's familiar, but tiny. He hands it to Hansel. "Is that all, your majesty?" Player 2: "Yes. Thank you." He wants to kiss Mishka again, quick and casual and easy. Instead he shuffles both kittens into one hand and waves him off with his best approximation of regality. "You can go. Drink some fucking water." Player 1: "Yes, Captain Hansel," he says, amused. And for a second it looks like he sobers up. "I'm really glad I don't have to kill you, Hans." And disappears. Player 2: Hansel looks at the place where he was for a moment. Then he swallows and turns back to Sugar. "Don't pay any attention to him. Just a joke. Listen--." He glances over to the ice patch in the hull. "Do you want me to help you get this thing in order? The decorations are ... very nice, and you know how to scrub a deck, but the rigging is ..." He can't think of a nice way to say completely fucked up. Player 1: Her eyes widen. "You mean like make it so it can sail out to sea?" She sounds enchanted. Player 2: He shifts uncomfortably. "One step at a time, all right?" Player 1: "That isn't generally how I do things," she says. Player 2: Giving her a look, he firmly says, "That's how I do things. I'll help you with your ship if you do what I say with it until I tell you you're ready. Do we have a deal?" (He used to try to make these sorts of deals with Jonn. They never worked, but he keeps trying.) Player 1: Sugar seems pretty used to this. In fact it's probably how almost all of her conversations with Mishka go. "Yes, Mr. Granger." She tries to shake Hansel's hand, drops a kitten, snags it mid-air, then scrambles upstairs. Sugar will make a good foster owner for kittens. The best. Player 2: Hansel realizes he's made several bad decision tonight. END Category:Text Roleplay